Time Travel in Pictures
by ProudDyspraxicWriter
Summary: When Marty is punished, he is sent to work in a nursing home, where he befriends an old man who never spoke until he met Marty. And does he have a story to tell! Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, RUBBISH oneshot.


**Written purely out of boredom and lack of plot bunnies. Forgive me if the behaviour of the elderly characters is unrealistic, stereotypical or offence in any way. I've yet to experience working with people with dementia (not that I'd like to.)**

The Time Machine

**Tuesday, 15****th**** July, 1980**

" You'll be working _two weeks _at the Louise Morgan Nursing Home!" Lorraine fumed, spraying spit in twelve year old Marty's face.

" What? I didn't do _anything_ wrong!" Marty answered back, his face pink with rage.

" Mr. Riley saw you fire that rocket into his fence!"

" That old codger is out to get me, I swear!" he cried.

" You're working at the nursing home, and that's _final_. End of discussion. I'm going to drop you off on my way to work. Now get your things. I want you in the car in five minutes." Lorraine, still furious, walked off upstairs to retrieve her handbag while she left her son throwing a fit.

" This is so not fair!" he muttered through clenched teeth and he kicked the ground angrily.

Although what he was doing with the toy rocket was correct, he didn't actually mean to aim it at Mr. Riley's fence. He would have aimed at the target he'd spent all afternoon building, but his stupid older brother Dave had cruelly snuck up behind him and smacked him around the back of the head, which led to a massive physical fight between the two boys. This caused Marty to lose his balance and crash into the rocket, setting it spiralling out of control into the fence, where Mr. Riley had been watching the entire scene from his front garden. He'd called Lorraine and George immediately, ranting about wanting Marty to pay for the damage. Dave got off scot-free, of course, because he was the 'perfect brother who never ever got into trouble.' Marty was constantly getting into trouble and his parents thought it was time for him to grow up, so work seemed like the plausible solution.

" This is so not fair!" Marty grumbled again later on in the car.

" If you can't do the time, don't do the crime," replied Lorraine nonchalantly as she turned the wheel to the right. " Sometimes, Marty, I worry about you."

Marty's brilliant blue eyes did a gambol in his head. " Great. I'm turning into Uncle Joey."

" If you keep going on like this, you'll end up being his cellmate."

" But I didn't do it!" the boy whined. " It was Dave! He was the one who-"

" Hush up! I don't want to hear another word about it," his mother snapped.

" Why do I have to hang around creepy old people when Dave gets to have his own car?" he riddled angrily.

" Because you need to learn to respect your elders. Trust me, Marty, I believe this would really benefit you. You're even rude to my parents."

" Respect, my butt."

" See, that's what I'm talking about." The car pulled up the drive of the nursing home. As Marty started to clamber out, she passed him his lunchbox. " I've packed you cheese and coleslaw sandwiches, a juice box and a homemade fruit salad."

" What, are you trying to kill me as well?" He wrinkled his nose at the thought of eating something healthy.

" I'll give you an extra slice of cake for desert tonight. But _only_ if you're good."

" Thanks," he sarcastically answered as Lorraine drove away.

When he was sure she was out of sight, he quickly threw his lunch into the bin, and then he reluctantly entered the building. When he first walked through the door, the first thing he noticed was the smell. There was an extremely unpleasant smell that hung in the air, which seemed to be a mixture of excrement, sick, urine and worst of all, mothballs. Then there was the noise. Even though it wasn't as bad as the smell, the sounds that the elderly people made were unpleasant, such as crying and wailing and there was a loud cacophony of chattering, which sounded more like cats being strangled. The plain, white-painted walls reminded the boy of a hospital and hospitals were the one thing that him feel incredibly nervous. He was once rushed to the Emergency Room after he burnt his hands in the infamous carpet incident when he was eight years old and that experience had put him off for a lifetime. He gulped the fear away and approached the reception desk.

" Um, Marty McFly? I've come to start work for two weeks," he explained to the receptionist.

She smiled warmly and looked down at a list of names and saw his right at the bottom. Then she said, " Aah, yes. Rocketboy. Come this way." She led Marty through a couple of doors. " This is the reading area. This is where the residents-"

" Read books, yeah. I got it," he replied rudely.

" Yes, well. I'll be leaving you under the supervision of Nurse Jones. Marie, Rocketboy's here."

Nurse Jones turned around and gave a slight shriek of horror at the sight of the ragged young boy's clothes. She was sure that his trousers hadn't been washed for a week. " Oh, um. Yes. Marty? Just sit with the residents and make sure they're OK. All right?"

" That's it?"

" Yes. You need to be qualified for this sort of thing. And evidently, you're not," the nurse replied. " Go sit with Mrs. Morris, won't you?"

Marty did as he was told. He pulled up a chair and sat down beside the elderly woman who appeared to be deeply engrossed in reading The Grapes of Wrath. But for some reason, when he was just about to introduce himself, she started yelling at him and smacking him in the head with her walking stick. Nurse Jones was watching from afar and stifling giggles.

" Did I forget to mention she's violent?" she called.

" Yeah. Think you did," he muttered in annoyance.

Deciding babysitting Mrs. Morris was a bad idea, he plodded off among the many aisles of bookcases, trying to find someone who wouldn't give him bruises. Then after a several minutes, he spotted a decrepit old man in a wheelchair. His face was so wrinkled that Marty was convinced the skin was beginning to drip off. He was thin and bony and he was white as a sheet, making him look sick and weak. His head had very little hair – only a few long white strands, here and there – but his eyes were bright and sparkling, like that of a child, and they were a dark chocolate brown. He was just in the corner as if he had been forgotten and he didn't have a book in his hands.

" Marty…" he uttered so quietly that Marty didn't hear him.

" Hey, you OK?" asked Marty, the faint sound catching his attention.

The old man looked in the boy's direction, but didn't make eye contact. At least he wasn't deaf, Marty thought.

" Yo, old guy. You want a book?" He took a small selection of books off the shelf. " Uh, Great Expectations? Or, um, The Time Machine?"

" Time machine," the man mumbled a little louder than before.

" Yeah? You into that kinda stuff then, huh?" Marty smiled. " Yeah, I am, too." He brought the book over and put it in the man's lap, but he instantly threw it on the floor.

" Time machine!" he insisted.

" Oh, I wouldn't bother with Verne," a voice suddenly rang out. Marty whirled around and saw Nurse Jones standing there. " He has autism, you see, and he's well into his nineties. All he does all day is sit there and doesn't speak a word and he's scared of people, so we just leave him there."

" But he just spoke to me! He said, 'time machine'. Didn't ya, Verne?" he cried excitedly. Verne stared at the book cover with an almost longing in his eyes. Marty couldn't help but feel sorry for the old man; almost heartbroken. When he looked back to Nurse Jones, she'd already gone. Instead, he turned his attention back to Verne to find out anything he could. " So, Verne, you like The Time Machine then? Why's that?"

" Ba! Ba…train…time machine…"

" Ba? What's that?"

Verne didn't speak. Instead, he took a piece of paper out of his pocket and flung it in Marty's face. As he took closer look at it, he realised it was an old, fading photograph in black and white. It showed an older man with long white hair standing beside a woman with a pretty smile and an old-fashioned dress. In front of them were two young boys, one with dark hair and the other, younger one with blonde. Marty assumed it must have been Verne's relatives or maybe his own family. Verne pointed at the man, repeating the same strange word over and over again.

" Ba! Ba! Ba! Ba! Ba-ba!" he insisted.

" Do you mean, your dad? That's your dad?"

Verne nodded proudly.

" He looks nice," Marty smiled. " That's your mom, I take it?"

He pointed at the woman and Verne nodded, saying, " Ma."

Marty looked closely at the two children and looked back at Verne, trying to see the resemblance. " Is that you?" he asked, pointing at the boy with the dark hair.

" Jules!" answered Verne. " Time machine, went away…" he added, sadly.

" Wait, what happened? Are you saying this Jules or whatever went away in a time machine?"

Verne looked blank but depressed.

" Are you sure about that?" the boy continued, stifling an immature giggle.

" Came back! With…Miley. Elly, Claudia, Kit. Nieces!"

" So, your brother went off in a time machine and came back with daughters?"

" Jules, future. Me, past." He took another black and white photograph from his pocket. In this one, it had Verne's parents, himself and Jules as adults, as well as a woman and three young girls who were all wearing clothes that didn't quite fit the time period, or any time period for that matter. Marty started to place it all together like a jigsaw puzzle. Verne's brother somehow obtained a time machine from somewhere, went to the future, picked up a chick, had a family with her and at some point went back to the past.

" Wow, you're crazy!" the boy chuckled.

" Remember Marty," the old man uttered finally.

He took out a third photograph and showed it to the young boy. This one had 'Marty & Me, 5th September, 1885' written on the back and in the photo stood Verne's father and an older version of Marty in front of a clock, which Marty recognised as the clock tower that didn't work anymore. Feeling a little weirded out, he looked into the old man's eyes and saw an entire mystery behind them, and a story that was yet to be told.

" Time machine," was Verne's last laugh.


End file.
